Friday, July 13, 2012

It's the Sauce

In this blog, I write about running, or more recently,
ellipticalling (spell check tells me that the word “elliptical” does not have a gerund form.
I will ignore it). This is an
entry about food. As a runner, nutrition
is a vital part of training. Trader Joe’s
Mandarin Orange Chicken (officially called “Trader Ming’s Mandarin Orange Chicken”
which may or may not be racist) is a vital part of Lauren’s and my diet. That is, until this week.

Here’s the back story.
I discovered this convenient meal in 2008 during my first
ever visit to a Trader Joe’s in Charlotte as I cruised the aisles looking for
snacks to fill my bachelor pad. Above it
in the freezer case was a sign that said -- and I am paraphrasing here -- “voted most
popular frozen food item in the universe.”
Considering the size of the universe and the number of frozen food items
available, I thought it was worth a shot – the logistics of conducting such a
large poll, notwithstanding. When I made
it for the first time (18-20 minutes in the oven on 400), I was not
disappointed. Not only was it delicious,
it was relatively nutritious: Seven
grams of fat, 190 calories per serving. I’d generally eat two to two and a half
servings.

After that fantastic first impression, I bought the orange
chicken on every trip to Trader Joe’s, a tradition that has continued on my
transitions from bachelor to husband and from North Carolina to New York
City. That brings us to this week. Lauren was out for the evening, and I was
going to make an easy dinner. I grabbed
the bag of frozen chicken from the freezer and as I did, something caught my
eye. “16 grams of fat, 320 calories per serving.” What?
I looked again. I was not reading
it wrong. The chicken was all of the sudden
worse for me than going to McDonalds.

Following a brief Google search that yielded no answers, I
fired off this email to the Trader Joe’s customer service team:

“My wife and I are long time Trader Joe's customers.
It's the only place we shop in New York City. One staple product in our
household is the Mandarin Orange Chicken. We found it to be a relatively
healthy and incredibly easy dinner option. I became accustomed to it and
I never looked at the nutrition facts. However, as I pulled out the
chicken for tonight's dinner, I was startled to find the nutrition information
had changed dramatically. While there was once 35 grams of fat in the
bag, there is now more than double that amount. When did this happen and
could someone please explain to me why? Thank you!”

This afternoon, I received this response:

Thank you for your feedback and sharing your concerns.
We did recently have to update the nutritional information on our
Mandarin Orange Chicken. Unfortunately, the sauce had not been included
in the overall nutritional factors so we had to make these corrections.
Your concerns have been shared with our Product Steering Committee.

The sauce?!?! How did they not include the
sauce in the nutrition facts? Without the
sauce, is it not Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken. It’s just chicken. One thing is for sure, this kind of egregious mistake would never happen at Wegmans.

There will be no more orange chicken in our
household. I imagine a brief but painful
chicken withdrawal period, but there are other frozen meals out there,
regardless of whether or not they are the best in the universe. Or maybe I need to stop looking at the
nutritional facts and eat on in blissful ignorance.

I just noticed this tonight too when I cooked it. I was shocked. Thought it was a good meal with 190 calories and 7g of fat, but now 320 and 16 per serving? That's crazy. How the hell can they leave sauce out of the nutritional info since it is included? WHo eats ORANGE CHICKEN without ORANGE SAUCE????

I hate to be "that guy" but there's a very clear asterisk on the initial picture you posted telling you that the calories listed are without sauce. Not only that, it lists the 20 calories per tablespoon that the sauce was adding. If anything, I would rather they keep the old labeling--now if I do want to have the chicken without sauce, or indeed if I'm wondering whether the sauce is included at all, I have to search online.